Welp. It happened here finally. Something many of us predicted.
Aren’t we tired of playing games with the terrorists? Do we not want to end them decisively, once and for all?
Thoughts?
My prayers are with the victims and their families.

Another horrible attack in Orlando, at least 50 dead at gay nightclub from an IS gunman, seems another gunman was apprehended at the gay pride march in LA. Sad to see this stuff happen over and over again.

Full information is yet to be known about the tragic shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando. Early reports suggest that Omar Mateen killed 50 people and injured over 50 others in what appears to be…

Just a reminder when Western politicians start repeating the mantra about that pathetic asshole gunmen and how he doesn’t represent “true Islam”, because it seems that a significant portion of the Arabic language twitter users think he does.

Even the translator acknowledges that tweets such as these are a “vast majority”.

I you don’t like it here go back your homeland, for the most part gay people are peace loving folks who had to put up with hate their whole lives. I have been lifting in gyms for 30 years i have met some gay dudes who would beat the crap out of these haters. Think what would happen if you sneek up on Janee Kroc and put in full nelson.

Aren’t we tired of playing games with the terrorists? Do we not want to end them decisively, once and for all?

Afraid we are going to have to wait for a President that will take the fight to the enemy and the nations that support them.

Obama and Clinton will only use attacks like this to push their anti gun agenda, playing right into ISIS hands.

I would hope that this attack coupled with the San Bernardino attack will convince people that Obama has failed in his primary job of protecting this Country and that his minion Clinton will only bring more of the same.

As far as I’m concerned it should be raining CBU’s all across the middle east right now.

Taking the fight to insurgents does not work. We did that in Iraq and all we got was Zarqawi. We did that in Afghanistan and the Taliban control most of the areas outside Kabul. We did that in Vietnam and we lost.

You can’t win against an insurgency that has popular support, are fanatical and want to die. Let them win, take control of the region and run a caliphate, then we have an enemy we can actually deal with.
All that is happening is what Al Qaeda planned, drag the west into dozens of small wars, make them overextend, bleed them financially and let them dismantle their own empire.

Obama has expanded most of Bush’s operations, drone wars, excursions into Pakistan, arming of proxies. More of the same isn’t the answer. A sensible immigration policy and a few decades of isolationism might be exactly what the doctor ordered.

True, any military action over there will cause collateral damage which will bring more problems our way. Even destroying everything will just end up pissing more people off domestically. Any action is either feeding the fire or starting a new one.

One Carrier Group could turn the whole Middle East into more of a Dust Bowl than it already is. In fact; one fully-armed destroyer and one Ohio Class Submarine could send all of ISIS to their maker.

However; as General Petreus said in a recent Q&A I listened too; the problem isn’t “solved” by bringing the full might of the U.S. Military to bear. It’s ultimately Political and Cultural.

He also emphasized that nothing is gained if you 1) destroy all infrastructure, leaving desert in it’s place and/or 2) there is no Political/Economic/Security/Governmental infrastructure to take the place of what you have destroyed.

While it may make some feel like we are “doing something” (which we already are, on a 24-7 basis) by sending greater numbers of Americans home in Flag-Draped coffins; the reality is that there are no “simple” solutions in the Middle East…and probably never will be.

I am deeply saddened by the attacks on the nightclub. I can only pray that the candidates use this to talk about terror rather than gun laws, but it doesn’t matter because 50 people are dead and another 50 are hospitalized.

I agree with Mufasa and joepears/sufiandy. This is a really, really complicated problem. And I want to do something about it. Right now. But the difficulty is knowing that if you choose the wrong thing you create more fires to put out. While I agree we need to come down hard, simply glassing the area is not going to solve this…I don’t think.

My opinions are in flux about our “proper” policy for this, but it’s a hard problem regardless and there is more than one perspective to it. And several of them have very valid points to boot.

Just continue to pray for the families/significant others of those affected and for wisdom and discernment for our policy makers and leaders, because it’s needed regardless of party.

This isn’t a party or gun control issue it’s a people issue. I would rather have a gay son then a terrorist son. Their is definitely some brainwashing going on, if you are a family man why would you do something that you know, leave your family without your protection, and guidance.

Taking the fight to insurgents does not work. We did that in Iraq and all we got was Zarqawi.

Well, not exactly. We ousted the sitting government while creating a vacuum allowing for Zarqawi to rise. We then pretty much decimated AQI once we finally killed that piece of shit.

Unfortunately, we were not prepared for the Arab Spring events, especially in Syria, and our response to ISIS once Baghdadi took over has been pathetic. Why he is not a rotting corpse is beyond me.

joepears:

All that is happening is what Al Qaeda planned, drag the west into dozens of small wars, make them overextend, bleed them financially and let them dismantle their own empire.

Not sure I necessarily agree here either. Maybe high level that is true, but AQ has actually condemned the Muslim on Muslim violence perpetrated by ISIS. By declaring a Caliphate and taking as much land as they’ve taken, ISIS is really drawing the U.S. into a large scale war. One they will lose once we find the will to fight it.

joepears:

Obama has expanded most of Bush’s operations, drone wars, excursions into Pakistan, arming of proxies.

Under Bush and Obama AQI was pretty much defeated using these tactics (Obama has scaled them back). AQI had almost no money, men, or support. I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the impact the Arab Spring would have in the region and our actions as it relates to Bashar al-Assad have made the situation worse. The Iraqi government being a joke didn’t help…

joepears:

A sensible immigration policy and a few decades of isolationism might be exactly what the doctor ordered.

Agree on the immigration piece. Isolationism is a terrible idea. The world is too small and Baghdadi isn’t going to just forget we exist. All we’d be doing is allowing ISIS to gain strength.

.It seems to me that we first need a President who will actually admit that we are at war with Islamic terrorists. Actually, our current President cannot even say the words “Islamic Terrorists”. That alone tells you that things will only get worse between now and January of next year when a new President is sworn in.

It’s a sad day when a gang of maniacs (somewhere around 40,000) can terrorize the USA on a continual basis and we literally do nothing of significance in response. It’s even sadder when many democrats blame gun laws for the mass shooting.

I feel horrible for the wasted lives, the families of the victims but most of all for my country that was once great.

Well, not exactly. We ousted the sitting government while creating a vacuum allowing for Zarqawi to rise. We then pretty much decimated AQI once we finally killed that piece of shit.

Unfortunately, we were not prepared for the Arab Spring events, especially in Syria, and our response to ISIS once Baghdadi took over has been pathetic. Why he is not a rotting corpse is beyond me.

At the start most of the resistance were secular nationalists either Baathists or Pan Arab nationalists, all fighting them did was decimate their ranks so the foreign Al Qaeda militia’s like Al Qaeda in Iraq could take control of places like Ramadi, Fallujah etc. We did eventually get the Sunni tribes to fight them but how long could we pay every Sunni tribesmen and how long would they stay fighting on our side with the sectarian Shia regime of Malaki committing ethnic cleansing against them?

usmccds423:

Not sure I necessarily agree here either. Maybe high level that is true, but AQ has actually condemned the Muslim on Muslim violence perpetrated by ISIS. By declaring a Caliphate and taking as much land as they’ve taken, ISIS is really drawing the U.S. into a large scale war. One they will lose once we find the will to fight it.

There was a great book written in 2003 on the evolution of Islamism from Sayyid Qutb and the Takfiri movement, to the Saudi and Qatari financing of Wahhabi schools and mosques worldwide. In one of the chapters it goes over captured correspondence with the leaders of Al leaders and it lays out a 100 year long strategy. Attack the far enemy, get the “crusader zionist” forces to invade every muslim nation where an Al Qaeda flag flies and entangle them in foreign wars where they will win every firefight but extend themselves and spend so much money over the next 100 years they are a spent force.

Bin Laden based his entire philosophy of war on a few different books that came out in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, all of which were based on the ethos “war of a thousand cuts”. Hs hope was to turn the entire muslim world against foreign troops, bleed the enemy slowly and long after he was dead an islamic caliphate would emerge. This is where AQI and AQP split regarding aims and why Zawahiri denounced ISIS and they never got on and merely needed a strategic allience.

usmccds423:

Under Bush and Obama AQI was pretty much defeated using these tactics (Obama has scaled them back). AQI had almost no money, men, or support. I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the impact the Arab Spring would have in the region and our actions as it relates to Bashar al-Assad have made the situation worse. The Iraqi government being a joke didn’t help…

Sure the Bush administration finally got a grasp over AQI, but they were the ones who created this mess by invading a nation that had nothing at all to do with 911 nor did it have any chemical weapons, it used to because we sold them to him to gas the Iranians and the Kurds, but he clearly had none for years.

However yes Bush does deserve credit for the successful strategy for the handling of the Sunni awakening, however this illustrates my point, no matter how successful any solution is in the immediate, it will never hold in that region. We couldn’t keep paying Sunni tribes, keep supporting the Shia regime which was sending out death squads and driving sunni’s back to Al Qaeda. There are so many sides who hate all other sides, we can’t have a long term coherent counter insurgency strategy over there.

I think we should of at least flown our allies to the west rather than let AQI roll back in as ISIS and kill them by the thousands though, but apart from that, shut down immigration, get out of the region as Ronald Reagan did and let the area tear itself apart and sort itself out.
Best outcome, secular nationalists prevail, worst outcome, they get a massive regional caliphate, that at least gives us a conventional force to fight, rather than nameless, faceless guerrillas who are impossible to defeat.

usmccds423:

Agree on the immigration piece. Isolationism is a terrible idea. The world is too small and Baghdadi isn’t going to just forget we exist. All we’d be doing is allowing ISIS to gain strength.

It is easier to fight a state than it is a guerrilla force. If we leave them alone they will turn to their own nations and building their caliphate. Let them do so, then in 50 years we will have a conventional power to face, we are good at crushing conventional powers, bad at beating insurgencies. We have the best soldiers in the world, but expecting them to beat fighters who have popular support and blend into the local population without conventional battles or uniforms is too much. Sending them to do the impossible is asking too much in my opinion.

At the start most of the resistance were secular nationalists either Baathists or Pan Arab nationalists

That swelled the ranks of Zarqawi’s AQI after we dismantled the Iraq government and military by essentially firing/ousting Baathist’s from their former jobs/careers. This gave Zarqawi the opening he needed to swell his organization, which was fundamentally different than AQ.

That said, my point is simply that we have demonstrated that the fight can be taken to insurgents and they can be destroyed. Events unfolded after AQI’s demise that led to the rise of ISIS.

joepears:

There was a great book written in 2003 on the evolution of Islamism from Sayyid Qutb and the Takfiri movement, to the Saudi and Qatari financing of Wahhabi schools and mosques worldwide. In one of the chapters it goes over captured correspondence with the leaders of Al leaders and it lays out a 100 year long strategy. Attack the far enemy, get the “crusader zionist” forces to invade every muslim nation where an Al Qaeda flag flies and entangle them in foreign wars where they will win every firefight but extend themselves and spend so much money over the next 100 years they are a spent force.

My disagreement is that this does not appear to be ISIS’ strategy. They have claimed territory larger than that of Israel. Baghdadi is trying to establish a real Muslim state, which I believe leads to a large scale conflict/war not small drawn out skirmishes. That was essentially my point. AQ and ISIS align enough that long term I don’t necessarily disagree, but the organizations act differently and their goals are not completely aligned.

joepears:

Bin Laden based his entire philosophy of war on a few different books that came out in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, all of which were based on the ethos “war of a thousand cuts”.

Bin Laden and Zarqawi didn’t agree. Baghdadi and Zawahiri didn’t agree either. This is my point. The organizations are different. The leadership is different. The strategy is different. The end game is similar, though.

joepears:

s hope was to turn the entire muslim world against foreign troops, bleed the enemy slowly and long after he was dead an islamic caliphate would emerge.

Right, but ISIS kills Shiite Muslim’s as much as they kill everyone else. Hell, they even kill Sunni’s at times.

That is a point where the two organizations differ greatly.

joepears:

This is where AQI and AQP split regarding aims and why Zawahiri denounced ISIS and they never got on and merely needed a strategic allience.

My understanding is that AQI was Al-Qaeda in name only. Zarqawi’s intentions have always been different than AQ’s and reached out to Bin Laden for name recognition and financing only. Yes, his organization started under AQ, but it morphed pretty quickly into something else.

joepears:

Sure the Bush administration finally got a grasp over AQI, but they were the ones who created this mess by invading a nation that had nothing at all to do with 911 nor did it have any chemical weapons, it used to because we sold them to him to gas the Iranians and the Kurds, but he clearly had none for years.

Not touching this. It’s been debate plenty before. My point simply is that we have and can once again hunt down and destroy an insurgrncy. It was done before and there is no reason was can’t do it again.

Appoint General McChrystal to take care of it and it will be taken care of.

joepears:

However yes Bush does deserve credit for the successful strategy for the handling of the Sunni awakening, however this illustrates my point, no matter how successful any solution is in the immediate, it will never hold in that region.

I disagree. I think you’re underplaying the revolutionary changes that occurred in the Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring. If those events don’t happen the Iraq government might have had the time and opportunity to better establish and secure governance over Iraq and Al-Assad, while a piece of shit, might have maintain relatively peaceful control over Syria. If the Arab Spring doesn’t occur I don’t think we’d even know who Baghdadi and I don’t think we have ISIS. At least not to the degree that they exist now.

joepears:

I think we should of at least flown our allies to the west rather than let AQI roll back in as ISIS and kill them by the thousands though, but apart from that, shut down immigration, get out of the region as Ronald Reagan did and let the area tear itself apart and sort itself out.Best outcome, secular nationalists prevail, worst outcome, they get a massive regional caliphate, that at least gives us a conventional force to fight, rather than nameless, faceless guerrillas who are impossible to defeat.

You’re free to your opinion. I don’t think it is wise to let a tumor grow. Eventually it has to be dealt with. Should we wait until ISIS has more Syrian chemical weapons or worst case Pakistan’s nuclear weapons? I think that’s a very dangerous idea.

joepears:

It is easier to fight a state than it is a guerrilla force. If we leave them alone they will turn to their own nations and building their caliphate. Let them do so, then in 50 years we will have a conventional power to face, we are good at crushing conventional powers, bad at beating insurgencies.

You’re essentially arguing for the exact same strategy that led to the situation we are in. We, for whatever reason, want to and did crush Saddam Hussein’s conventional army. This occurred after years of allowing Saddam to maintain/solidify his power after the Iran/Iraq war, desert storm, etc… Yes, it was easy, as you said we’re good at it, but many of the Iraq fighters, military personnel, etc… that remained created or joined guerrilla forces in the aftermath. Why would the same thing not happen in 50 years?

joepears:

We have the best soldiers in the world, but expecting them to beat fighters who have popular support and blend into the local population without conventional battles or uniforms is too much. Sending them to do the impossible is asking too much in my opinion.

I don’t believe ISIS has popular support, though. It’s not impossible if you let them do their job. It’s been done before it can be done again.